gfortran links to bug lists

[Jerry DeLisle]

Paul Thomas wrote:
> Dear All,
> 
> When I made the links to specific categories of bugs on the gfortran 
> wiki, I was trying to point out that we are still a ways from having a 
> fully satisfactory F95 compiler - admittedly, the bugs are getting to be 
> increasingly obscure but our aim should surely be to make as good an F95 
> compiler as we can before moving on to F2003.
> 
> I find it a bit concerning that the focus has shifted so far to F2003 
> that I have had to resurrect my own Bugzilla lists.  Is this really what 
> we want to be doing right now?  If so, OK, I'll plough my own furrow but 
> I'd rather that we all pulled together.

I agree we need to focus on the bug list.

> 
> I am as keen as the next to get serious F2003 features into gfortran.  
> In fact, I have ideas about how to proceed on many of them, and have 
> even done some fairly serious experiments on them - eg. the ABSTRACT 
> INTERFACE and PROCEDURE patch.  However, I do think that we should walk 
> before we run.  I am struck that Tobi Schlueter and I were talking 
> character bugs two years ago and that I am still struggling, after all 
> this time, with a very big character patch.
> 
> I was very disappointed at the complete lack of interest in revamping 
> the parser to carry out some fairly fundamental inprovements to 
> gfortran.  Whilst we are doing OKish on Polyhedron execution tests, we 
> are still not scoring very well on diagnostics and module usage is 
> woefully slow. (Try to get your heads around F2003 classes without 
> sorting this out.)

I will work with you on this.
> 
> What do you all think?  Am I wasting my energy or are others also 
> committed to a systematic development of gfortran?
> 

I don't have many words to offer here.  All I know is that I am focusing on the 
bugs that I can.  Obviously iso-c-binding needs to get squared away.  Character 
related stuff is obvious, diagnostics, and initialization issues.

Maybe we should take a month and focus a few of us on one area and see what we 
can do.  I am OK with that.

Jerry